It might be my imagination, but his eyes look like they’re twinkling a bit. Is he amused?
Wordlessly, he cups my jaw and holds my gaze steady with his. “Not the predominant emotion,” he repeats, his accent so heavy I can hardly understand him. “You speak like a walking dictionary.”
He’s criticizing my word choice? Really?
“Well. So?” I ask.
“So?” he repeats.
“Am I supposed to repent for my vocabulary?” I ask. Now I’m getting angry. What a silly thing to criticize. “I’m an educated woman who’s read far more words than she’s ever spoken. And you never mentioned my word choice in your instructions.”
He shakes his head, his warm, calloused palm under my chin making it difficult to speak.
Leaning in closer, his breath caresses my cheek. “Then tell me, krastoka,” he says. “If fear isn’t your predominant emotion, what is?”
I think for a moment. I have no reason to give him anything but the bald truth, but when I realize what the truth is, I feel a little bashful.
“Curiosity.” I decide to tell him. Maybe a part of me wants him to shed light on this. “This is all… so wrong. Yet… surreal. It surprised me I felt let down when I thought you were signaling you’d punish me. And though I feared being put behind bars, I wondered what it would be like being degraded like that.”
“Degraded?” he asks curiously.
“Yes,” I continue. “Humiliated.”
I watch his eyes narrow. “I know what the word means.”
I say nothing in response, but swallow my emotion, waiting for him to make his next move like we’re playing a game of life-or-death chess and he’s about to say, “check mate.”
“What else,” he growls.
“What else?” I whisper. The timbre of his voice reverberates through me, making my palms grow sweaty and my pulse race with expectation. The masculine, spicy scent of his cologne. His warm, rough hand against my skin, holding me hostage with his eyes that promise punishment, pain, and pleasure. I don’t get a chance to respond before his mouth hovers over mine. A flash of panic warns me he’s about to kiss me, and that it’s wrong, I’m not his lover. I’m a woman he’s stolen, a woman he’s going to hurt, and kissing is for the people who do things right. But I can’t stop him any more than I can stop my heart from beating. I can’t help leaning into him.
I need to know what those lips taste like.
I inhale in anticipation the second before his lips hit mine.
I never knew why people close their eyes when they kiss. But when he kisses me, I know. I’m so overcome with feelings, so wrapped up in this moment, I need to shut out everything else around us. When our lips meet, my body jolts and hums with pleasure. I need more. Deeper. Longer. My hands reach for his neck, scrambling for purchase as he pulls me toward him, his warm, strong hands on the small of my back. I moan. I’m drowning but it’s a thrilling struggle, the beat of my heart and rapid pulse in my veins making me feel more alive than ever.
Too soon, he pulls away. He blinks. It’s the only time I’ve seen his eyes register shock. He’s as surprised as I am. He mutters a guttural curse in his native language. I have no idea what he says, but I know by his tone it can be nothing but cussing.
“And now, krastoka,” he whispers. “What is your predominant emotion?”
I shake my head, unable to put into words what’s happening right now. I’m spiraling out of control, afraid of being attracted to a man I should hate. How could I? I feel as if anything less than hatred and revenge betrays every woman who’s ever walked this Earth, and yet—
My mind stutters to a halt when he yanks up the fabric of my dress, bunching it carelessly between his rough fingers, I freeze when his palm glides down my lower back and over my backside, coming to rest where he’s put that god-awful metal. I close my eyes, my cheeks heating, when he traces a finger between my cheeks.
“Kazimir,” I beg, knowing before I utter a thing that my pleas will fall on deaf ears. He has to stop. This is too much.
“Hush,” he commands, caressing the outer edge of the plug. It makes me feel so full I might split apart, and so utterly under his control, it’s as if he holds the switch to my will in his hand. I’m a marionette, and he holds the strings. Orchestrating my every move. My every thought. “You want to know what it’s like,” he says, a statement without question. “I’ll show you what it’s like.”
Panic sweeps through me. “No,” I tell him, shaking my head. I lost myself there for a moment, but now the thought of meeting “his lash” as he calls it, or the bars of a cage, make real panic surface. He only looks at me with a wolfish grin and shakes his head.